


Messenger

by saisei



Series: My Halloween Fic [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dogs, Fluff, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 07:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saisei/pseuds/saisei
Summary: He calls her Chibi. She's his best friend. He takes her for runs before and after school, and teaches her how to shake and sit and roll over. He doesn't mind that she's a ghost. His parents would never let him have a living pet: the food would be expensive, and fur would get everywhere. Still, he keeps Chibi in his room when they're home, letting her gnaw on his slippers.(Happy birthday, Prompto!)





	Messenger

"_Oh,_" Prompto says when he sees the dog lying by the side of the road on his way home from school. It's tiny and bloodstained and crumpled, barely breathing. Hit by a car, he fears. He wraps it up in his gym shirt and runs with it clutched to his chest, all the way down to the animal hospital across from the supermarket.

"I'm sorry," the vet tells him when she sees him. "She's dead, hun."

"Check again," Prompto urges. "I saw, she was okay." He's crying. The vet gives him a hug, then sends him home, empty-handed.

He takes a shower but there's no washing away the grief, so he crawls into bed without supper and sinks into a miserable, hollow sleep. He half-wakes when the bed dips and a warm furry body snuggles against his side. He wraps his arms around her and gets his nose licked. _She likes me,_ he thinks, and dreams.

He calls her Chibi. She's his best friend. He takes her for runs before and after school, and teaches her how to shake and sit and roll over. He doesn't mind that she's a ghost. His parents would never let him have a living pet: the food would be expensive, and fur would get everywhere. Still, he keeps Chibi in his room when they're home, letting her gnaw on his slippers.

He tells her everything, and she sends him visions at night, of the girl in the moon and the boy who lost the sun. It doesn't make much sense to him, but he supposes magic doesn't have to. About half a year after Chibi moves in Prompto gets a letter from Lady Lunafreya of Tenebrae, whose agents traced him from his abandoned gym shirt. She asks him to befriend Prince Noctis and take care of Pryna for her.

"That's your real name, huh," Prompto says. It's a nice, fancy name, the sort of thing a grand lady might name a puppy, but Chibi's ear just twitches. She only answers to one name now.

She starts out as a cute puppy with outsized feet who Prompto can carry in his arms, but somehow she grows to full adult size, her coat lightening to pure white, soft as anything. Prompto tells her she's a good girl and very clever to figure out how to get big, considering she's dead and doesn't eat or anything. Chibi nudges him until she gets scritches, and then she licks his hand all over.

He tells Noct about her, once they're friends, and Noct admits he knew – Lady Lunafreya told him. Prompto smuggles Chibi into the Citadel once when Chibi's brother Umbra is visiting. She whines as soon as she senses he's near, and Prompto tells her to go play. The two dogs frolic, chasing each other all over the garden, rolling together until they collapse exhausted into a nap, a ball of black and tan fur.

Prompto asks Noct and Gladio and Ignis, but none of them can see Chibi. Only Prompto.

It's not the sole reason Noct asks Prompto to come with him to his wedding – they're bros, after all – but it's _one_ reason, Prompto's sure. Chibi sticks her head out the Regalia's side window and lolls her tongue, her tail bashing into (_through_) Ignis excitedly as he drives. Prompto thinks she knows she's going to see Lunafreya again.

But Luna dies in Altissia. When Prompto and Gladio finally make their way to the ruined altar, Prompto sees Chibi with her jaws clamped tight around a mouthful of Luna's gown, claws scrabbling against the stone, growling. Behind Luna is a rip in the world, revealing the nothingness of the Beyond, and she teeters, trying not to fall in.

Prompto grabs her and just barely manages to pull her free with Chibi's help, and they all stagger back to join Gladio in getting Ignis and Noct to safety.

There's blood on Luna's bodice, which is all cut up, so Prompto loans her his jacket. Ravus, who they've all been skirting around, grabs him and demands to know who he is and what his intentions are toward Luna.

"Oh, _cool_," Prompto says, glad for the distraction from his worries. "You can see her? Can you see Chibi, too?" He's never met anyone like himself before. He just wishes Ravus wasn't so... weird.

"_What are you?_" Ravus demands again, shaking him, but Luna smacks him in his flesh arm and tells him to carry Ignis instead.

The next few days are tense. Noct's out cold, and Luna's powers of healing don't work any more, at least not on the living. She puts her hands over Ignis' scarred face and the slow rise and fall of Noct's chest and grows angrier and angrier at her impotence. Gladio and Ravus snarl at each other in _their_ helplessness and grief.

Prompto goes for a walk with Luna and Chibi one morning, just to get out of that horrible atmosphere. He shows Luna his wrist and asks if he's... not human, somehow. Part daemon, or Scourge infected, and if that's why he attracts ghosts.

"Why not part god?" Luna asks. Chibi had trotted ahead, and she returns now to drop a bit of wood hopefully at Luna's feet. "This one is a messenger of the gods, after all." Luna scratches Chibi's head absently before bending to grab the stick and then flinging it far across the plaza. Prompto worries for a moment that someone might get hit before he remembers: ghost girl, ghost dog, and apparently a ghost stick.

"Doubtful," Prompto says. "I mean – you've met gods. They're very... not me."

"I like you better," Luna says, leaning close like she's telling a secret. It doesn't matter – she could shout and no one would hear her, except perhaps Ravus, if Prompto was especially unlucky.

When Ignis gets well enough to walk around, it turns out that he can also see Chibi and Luna now, though not clearly. To his irritation, his spare pair of glasses doesn't improve his vision, which apparently is muzzy gray with an occasional pale blur begging to be brushed and taken for walksies.

Prompto thinks this is a pretty big clue.

He tells Noct that maybe the ring gives people second sight. Noct stares at him, blank and unhappy, and then pulls the ring from his pocket and jams it on his finger. He doubles over and writhes, while Prompto frantically asks him if he can do anything – should he call Gladio – and rubs Noct's back gingerly, trying not to cause any further pain. Chibi comes over and licks Noct's face, and after a moment Noct looks up to meet her eyes. His own are glowing a dull red. She barks at him, and he smiles, like his grief and the crushing weight of responsibility have lifted for a moment.

Prompto goes and finds Luna to bring her to Noct, and he leaves them to talk in private. Chibi is upset at being dislodged from the royal bedroom, so Prompto curls up with her in a corner, reassuring her that she's still his best girl.

When Noct comes out, he's taken the ring off. "It's full of ghosts," he says by way of explanation. 

"Yes," Ravus says darkly. "Your _illustrious_ and merciless ancestors. Do give them my regards."

Luna rolls her eyes at him and sits down with Ignis, murmuring something soft to him that makes him snort with amusement, even as he rubs the new red scar on his finger.

"The strength of the Lucii," Ravus continues, lecturing in Noct's direction even though he's taking Luna's notebook out and trying to write her a message, "isn't that they're immortal, but that they can be summoned to battle from either side of death – this world or the Beyond. The Oracle holds the gateway between the two worlds open, as it were."

"Well, that's creepy," Prompto says. He regrets now all the skulls sewn all over his uniform like his own personal army of the dead. He hopes Luna doesn't find them offensive.

"You're the kid with a ghost dog," Gladio points out. He seems unbothered by all this, but he's probably doing giddy cartwheels in his head because Noct finally wore the ring.

Prompto rubs Chibi's belly and wonders if the gods led her to him for a reason. With him at her side, she's been able to gather together the King and the Oracle, the King's Shield and Advisor, and the Oracle's annoying brother. Prompto doesn't know what he is – given he's adopted, he's not even sure who he is. But sitting here, he suddenly feels less like a tag-along and more like this is where he belongs.

Chibi licks his chin; he grins down at her. He's assembled her team, now they're ready to go save the world and not even death can stop them.


End file.
